


empty promises, loaded lies

by sunchime



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Dark Number Five | The Boy, Dubious Morality, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Heavy Angst, High School, Minor Violence, Pseudo-Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Romance, Sexual Assault, Slow Burn, mentioned but not shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunchime/pseuds/sunchime
Summary: He spoke to her as if nothing had happened. Talked and talked at her like he was the same boy she had learned to care for in a measly six months. It was like no matter what mask he wore, it always fit him like a second skin.“Who are you?” She whispered.From his seat beside her, the boy smiled in a way that made his mask look real. “Call me Five.”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 31
Kudos: 180





	empty promises, loaded lies

**Author's Note:**

> here it is!! the beast is done, it only took me *weeks* to write orz
> 
> quick shout out to the lovely people who bete'd this!! thank you so much to tori, kat, and agnes!! you guys saved my butt and my life TToTT<3<3<3

Vanya had been born lonely and with a deep-rooted ache that slowly gnawed away at the back of her thoughts like hunger pains.

Raised by a father who cherished prestige over children, she had learned to deal with the pain by storing it inside glass bottles. And burying those bottles deep, deep, _deep_ within the depths of muscles, bone, and blood. Eventually, the awkward way her heart throbbed around the protruding shapes became familiar. And if she didn’t pay it too much attention, she hardly felt it at all.

Her father had kept her isolated most of her childhood, ashamed of the failure he had brought into the world. She grew up away from other children, from other people really. It wasn’t until she hit puberty that he allowed her into the public.

Even then, the other students avoided her. She was the daughter of the headmaster and they had decided she was a bitch before she had walked through the door.

It didn’t help that the only thing she had been good at was the violin. She had spent hours upon hours cutting her fingers raw on the strings in attempts to perfect the one thing she had shown promise in. The music instructor had made her first chair almost instantly.

And so, she was born alone and she endured alone.

* * *

—Until the new student had shown up on the first day of senior year.

Whispers about him had been traveling throughout the school since the beginning of the week. It was rare that anyone new should join. The academy was too elite to let just anyone waltz right in. Especially a stranger with a nobody name and no connections.

“Class, I’d like to introduce you to your new classmate, Quintin Wright.”

But there he was. Tall, dark and handsome with sea-green eyes that could cut through any room like an axe.

Vanya hid behind her bangs most days, using them as a kind of barrier to keep her safe from the other students. If she didn’t look, they didn’t bother her. Mostly.

But his eyes had called to her with their siren song and like the starved sailor she was, she had looked.

A dimpled smirk was her reward.

* * *

The other students wouldn’t stop whispering during study period. The shrill sound of their words bore their way into Vanya’s head, stabbing her eardrums along the way.

The noise was distracting and Vanya, for the life of her, couldn’t focus on the textbook laid out on her desk. She had given up some time ago, but foolishly she’d still seek out a word or two to try and form a coherent thought. It was all Greek to her anyway. Literally.

Sighing, she threw her head in her arms. If she wasn’t going to get any studying done she might as well get some sleep while she could.

Of course, as soon as her back was turned, the whispers shifted from questions about weekend plans to something more exciting with cruel intentions. There was definitely a mention of her name and a ‘bitch’ among the sea of lies and rumors. Vanya’s ears pinked.

Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? She didn’t even talk to them. She wished she could fold deeper into herself and avoid their words altogether. Maybe if she curled up tight enough, she’d turn into nothing and disappear.

Someone coughed to her right and Vanya was grateful for the momentary reprieve from the sibilant insults. Maybe she’d even get lucky and catch a cold. Dad would never let her out of the house if she looked even a fraction more unbecoming than usual. How embarrassing would that be? He would never live it down.

“Hey,” someone called to the right of her.

She burrowed further into her arms and squeezed her eyes hard in hopes of it making her fall asleep faster.

“Excuse me.”

Could the other person respond already? Vanya wanted to wallow with minimal interruption.

Said interruption tapped her shoulder.

She tensed. Who in the world would want to speak to _her?_

_Please don’t let it be another asshole._

“Y-yes?” She managed to squeak it out like a timid mouse, lifting her head from the safety of her arms.

_Oh._

Quintin Wright stared back at her with his stupidly perfect face.

“You’re Vanya, right?” He paused for her to answer.

Dumbly, she nodded.

“I hear you're the headmaster’s daughter.”

_There it is._

Her heart thumped painfully in her chest.

“I am,” she stated, levelly. Her hands were going to leave bruises with how hard she was gripping her arms.

Quintin eyed her in a way that reminded Vanya of a fox from those fairy tales: sharp eyes full of cunning and deceit. His stare was so cold and calculating, it felt like being under a magnifying glass. Fleetingly, Vanya imagined herself as the ant Quintin was trying to burn out of bored curiosity.

He seemed to linger on her hands, pausing at her white knuckles. Vanya quickly released them to smooth out her sleeves. 

His gaze flicked back to her face. “Also heard you were a bitch,” he quipped. “According to the rumor mill.”

Vanya frowned. “I bet you heard a lot of things.”

Quintin smirked as he leaned back in his seat. “Oh, yeah. You could say that.”

Might as well end this interview as quickly as possible. “Well, let’s lay it all out then,” she began, straightening in her seat. “First off, I’m a bitch, as we’ve already established. Second, I’m also a kiss ass who probably—see definitely— blew the music instructor for first chair. And third, I’m so desperately lonely I’ve won the superlative of most likely to drop success for a man.”

“Or become a prostitute,” he added oh, so helpfully.

“Right. That too.”

Vanya got the sense that Quintin was an inquisitive person by nature. The whole conversation, he had been observing her like she was a wild animal he’d never seen before and had to approach with caution. Apparently she’d graduated from an ant to an exotic animal. She wanted to bite his hand off just to get him to mind his business.

Something about her expression must have told him something because he quirked a brow at her. “You’re pretty bitter aren’t you?”

Her expression turned icy. 

Who the hell did he think he was? He had one conversation with her and he thought he knew everything about her? Heard all the rumors there was to know and suddenly he knew what the core of her personality boiled down to? Well, he was wrong anyway. Even with help from the rumors. Her core was loneliness thank you very much and Quintin could kindly eat a dick.

“Well it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got to study now.”

Angrily, she flipped the page of her book even though she had only read half of the first page and had no idea what she was looking at. Why had she taken Greek I senior year?

“Vanya.”

Right, she needed an impressive application for college and dad had told her she needed more languages. Not like she didn’t speak several European languages fluently already, _dad._

_“Vanya.”_

The letters swam across the page as she tried to process the foreign alphabet she had only learned half of. It was only the second week of school and the professor expected her to not only memorize all twenty-four letters, but to write a coherent sentence on top of it.

“Vanya, look. I’m—” a pause. “— _Sorry,_ ” he finished.

At that, Vanya peeked back over to him stunned. No one had ever really apologized to her before. Usually, they went on pretending that they had never said anything wrong to begin with and then played at being her friend. This was _new._

Quintin cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I was trying out an icebreaker—”

“Not a very good one.”

“Right. Again, sorry. I just…” He waved a hand in the air like he was looking for the words. “I wanted to find an excuse to talk to you,” he settled for with a shrug.

“...Why _me? ”_

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “You seem different. Everyone else at this school is like a sheep following the herd off a cliff.”

Her eyebrows jumped into her hairline. 

The students at this school tended to all be cut from the same cloth of self-entitlement, self-obsession, and self-indulgence. But hardly ever self-awareness. Vanya laughed, incredulous. “That’s pretty accurate, actually.” 

Oh. There were those fox-eyes again, picking out pieces of her she didn’t know she was giving away. Vanya ducked her head to use her bangs as cover.

“Do you want to sit with me at lunch tomorrow?” 

Her head jerked up disbelieving. She blinked. Blinked again. Then, she flushed in disbelief. “You want me to sit with you?” She rushed out.

“Yeah, I think you’re interesting. A hell of a lot better than the other assholes in this place.”

For a split second, the pain Vanya had buried deep inside herself all her life felt weightless. Like they’d turn from bottles into balloons.

“I—yeah. okay.”

* * *

“Remember to maintain your grades,” her father reminded her from across the dinner table. “Seeing as you are incompetent in the vast majority of your classes, you cannot be expected to make it into any acceptable colleges,” he continued, sparing her a quick glance from his agenda. “Thus, early admissions are out of the question.” 

Vanya kept her eyes steadily on her dinner, shoveling a small chunk of crab into her mouth. 

“You have been practicing your entrance pieces I presume?”

He didn’t really care for her answer, but she nodded anyway.

“Good. That is all you have for a chance of being accepted into a college worth any merit.” Seemingly finished with the discussion, her father stood from the table to make his way to his study.

She shoved the rest of her meal into the sink.

* * *

Vanya was expecting a prank. It had happened before. Some kid she hardly knew would ask her to join them for lunch only to stand her up or mock her in front of the entire cafeteria. But for some stupid reason, she always gave them a chance. Desperation maybe. Wanting to fit in. A friend. Any one of those worked.

Throughout her morning classes, Vanya couldn’t stop the anxiety flowing through her veins that made her limbs tingle. Every five minutes her eyes would jump to the clock in anticipation.

The professor had asked her a question in the middle of world literature and Vanya had to stand up with her guess for an answer. A chorus of giggles hit her when she sputtered out a random author.

It had been a question about symbolism. 

Vanya sank back into her seat and held her gaze on her desk for the rest of the period.

When the bell signalling lunch chimed, all the anxiety coursing through her bloodstream turned into a dense, heavy dread. Her heart pumped sluggishly in her chest as her lungs felt tight with every breath.

Vanya was the last to shuffle out of the room, feet dragging as she made her way begrudgingly to the cafeteria. 

Except…

What if she didn’t.

The idea crept up in her mind that maybe, just this once, she wouldn’t let herself get hurt again for nothing. She was sure Quintin wouldn't mind. He seemed self-assured enough that it wouldn’t bother him. And besides, he was popular enough by being the new kid, Vanya was certain he could find a place to sit with anyone.

 _Yeah, that’s right…He’s_ popular. _He doesn’t need me._

Mind made up, she hurried along the well-trodden path to the library. It was the only safe place in the academy. Once she was there, she wouldn’t have to worry about a single judgmental opinion from anyone for at least an hour.

Except someone had something else in mind, grabbing her elbow and halting her in her tracks. Her heart spiked. The bullies hadn’t touched her since freshman year. Why would they want to hurt her now?

Frantically, she tried to snatch her arm back and make a run for it, but the grip was _strong._

“Where do you think you’re going?”

_Quintin?_

Wild eyes found his calm ones. He watched her coolly in that way that he did, his face kept fairly neutral. 

“I—what?”

“The cafeteria’s in the other direction. Shit, I’m new here and even _I_ know that,” saying this, he released her arm to shove into his pockets.

It was like he was waiting for a reply, the way his head tilted.

Vanya felt nervous, preparing the lie in her head. “Oh,” she fumbled with her books, adjusting the way they sat in her arms, “I figured you changed your—”

Rolling his eyes, he cut her off. “I would have let you know if that was the case.”

Pointing his head towards the cafeteria he said, “Come on.” 

Quintin started walking without looking back, confidence radiating from him like he was a star with its own gravitational pull.

Numbly, Vanya followed like a moth to the flame hurrying after him. 

* * *

At lunch, Vanya learned a lot about her classmate she would have never been given the chance to with anyone else. 

He drank coffee and preferred it black. Otherwise, it was too ‘sickeningly sweet’—to put it in his words. Not that he hated sweet things, he was actually quite a fan of fluffernutter sandwiches and Fudge Nutters.

Quintin also liked math. Like a ridiculous amount. He was obsessed with it. 

“When I was a kid, I would even write my equations all over the walls of my room,” he chuckled.

Vanya gasped. “No!”

Quintin took a bite of his sandwich. “Oh, yeah. Parent’s were furious with me until I grew out of it.”

Hiding a laugh behind her hand, Vanya nodded for him to continue. 

“One time, my mom actually snatched the chalk out of my hand and threw it out the window.”

Vanya gaped at him. Her dad had a pretty similar way of punishment. He had done the same with her violin bow when she had misbehaved. Well, technically he had ordered his assistant, Pogo, to do it. But even still, it hurt to know that other people went through similar things. No one deserved that kind of treatment. 

“I’m sorry, Quintin.”

Surprised, he turned to her. “For what?”

She shrank into herself, suddenly feeling as though she had made a mistake. Was that not something she should have said? Was that kind of thing actually fairly common and Vanya was just too sensitive? 

“That you had to experience that,” she offered weakly.

Quintin considered her, his expression eerily neutral. “What about you, Vanya?”

_Huh?_

“What about me?”

“What do _you_ like?”

Vanya sat there speechless, mouth parted slightly in awe. No one had bothered to care enough to ask her that. It was almost surreal, the way those words simultaneously sparked elation and complete panic. 

“Um,” she started, unsure of what to say. “I, uh, like...playing violin?” 

_Idiot._

She hadn’t meant for it to come out a question, but the deed had already been done and now she had to await the punishment she was sure Quintin was about to unleash. In the meanwhile, Vanya decided that her salad looked especially fascinating.

“Who do you like to play? Vivaldi, Bach, Brahms?”

Amazed, her eyes met his. “You know composers?”

Shrugging he said, “Only the bigger names. I don’t actually play, just listen.” He pointed to his ear for emphasis. 

“Oh, neat.”

“So…” He gestured with his hand for her to continue.

“Oh. Um, I actually prefer Paganini.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t he particularly difficult?”

“Only some of his pieces,” she clarified. “Mostly his solos. I’m not good enough for most of them yet, but I've been working at one for colleges.” 

Before she knew it, Vanya was having a full-blown conversation with Quintin about all things music. Apparently he was fond of classical and jazz, but he didn’t mind dipping his toe into other genres. Said it was good for the mind to have variety. She hadn’t really been given the chance to listen to things other than classical, so he listed off a few artists for her to try out.

Vanya felt like her whole world was suddenly waking up, the sun finally peeking out from the horizon it’d been hiding under to bring warmth and light to her otherwise starless life. 

While everyone else regarded Vanya as a dull, ugly rock, Quintin had been curious enough to pry a little further and find something worth seeking. His care had nestled into her insides, creating a temporary geode of her. 

* * *

When Vanya came home that day, she ate dinner in silence. Her father, seated at the opposite end of the table, hadn’t made a single inquiry about her day. 

The pork loin steak tasted like ash in her mouth.

For the next week, her meals would go in and out of flavor. 

After the third day, she had decided dinner wasn’t so important and learned to push the food around on her plate convincingly.

Not that dad had ever looked up.

* * *

It had taken some time for Vanya to realize that Quintin had been regularly seeking her out. 

In classes where they weren’t seated near each other, which was most of them, he’d pass her notes. Mainly just snarky things about the professor or one of the students, but sometimes he’d even include a drawing. Vanya ended up having to hide her smile by resting it on her palm, like she’d seen some of the other kids do.

If she could find the chance to risk it, Vanya would try and catch his eye to jokingly scold him.

Usually, he’d give her an unapologetic smirk and hold his head higher. Sometimes, he’d pretend her headshake had wounded him by placing a hand over his heart.

In the hallways between classes, he’d complain to her about the lesson. “Can you believe that moron? Everyone _knows_ sine is positive in the second quadrant. How the hell has he managed to keep his job here?” 

Vanya hadn’t known that, but his enthusiasm was appreciated. She didn’t mind his rants so much. They were actually pretty entertaining. And if they weren’t about her, even better.

Once Vanya realized that Quintin had wanted her to sit with him _every_ lunch, her mind had nearly short-circuited.

“You want to sit with me again?”

He gave her a look like she had asked a dumb question. To him, most of her questions probably _were_ dumb. “Yes.”

“But you sat with me yesterday,” she pointed out.

Quintin frowned at that. “And I plan to tomorrow as well.”

A nebula erupted inside Vanya’s mind, a large explosive death of her tiny little world as she knew it. Somewhere in the particles and stardust, something new had turned her dying star into a galaxy. 

A _friend._

“Okay,” she replied, mystified.

So, she showed him her hiding place in the library where nobody ever went. It was a secret, a nook tucked in a wing that most people didn’t realize existed. Pinched in the shelves were books upon books about the most hyper-specific scenarios that Vanya had spent hours pouring over. Each one so unique from the last, it could make her head spin. 

She loved it there. It was a haven where the whispers could never reach her and thus the rumors could never hurt her.

Whenever she needed a pick-me-up, she’d pluck whichever book caught her eye and read it as she enjoyed whatever it was she packed for lunch. 

That day, she had packed soup in her thermos, some vegetable side dishes, and two Fudge Nutters. An extra one to share with Quintin.

He let out a low whistle as he surveyed her hideaway. “Not bad.”

Vanya beamed. 

“Oh,” she exclaimed as she went to dig the loveseat out from the stack of books. She was so used to only needing half of it available. Turning, she rubbed her arm in thought. “I’m sure there’s a table here somewhere…”

Even the librarian couldn’t muster up the effort to come to this distant section of the library. It always stayed exactly as Vanya had left it. That didn’t mean she remembered where she had left things mind you.

“This it?” 

Vanya spun around to find Quintin squatting near the window, already tossing books aside as he pulled the poor thing free from its bookish prison.

“How’d you spot that?”

He smirked and tapped his temple. “Sharp eyes.”

Vanya helped him drag it towards the couch so that they could have a surface to eat on. They set up their lunches in no time at all, containers pressed flush together on the tiny space. It was a tight fit, but they could eat comfortably enough. At least there was more room on the loveseat. Vanya sat folded against the arm on one end while Quintin sat forward on his side.

By the time she was on the last of her carrots, he had already finished his lunch and had begun picking up books at random to read the titles.

“‘How to Catch the Man of Your Dreams and Learn to Fish Without a Reel.’ Jesus, this reads like a shitty magazine article for preteens.”

Vanya giggled, “I know! You should see the one about the legality and gray morality of romantic relations between adopted siblings.”

“What,” Quintin flatly asked. 

Grinning, Vanya put away the last of her lunch as she brought out the candy bars. “Here,” she offered.

He looked at the thing like it was a bomb about to go off in his face. 

Scrunching a brow in confusion, she persisted steadfastly, “You said you like these...right?” She couldn’t help but second guess herself now. “Chocolate and peanut butter.” Like that would clarify things.

Hesitation was written all over his face before he cautiously accepted her gift. “Thanks,” he mumbled. The gears turned away in his head as he studied her. Once again Vanya felt like something ‘other’ as he tried to figure her out.

Uncomfortable with the attention, she quickly reached for a book then promptly shoved it in his face. “Try this one.”

He rubbed at his nose as he read allowed, “‘The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves.’”

Vanya had, in fact, _not_ read that one yet. She choked, desperately fighting a losing battle, before letting out an embarrassingly loud howl of laughter. It wasn’t long before Quintin joined her, snickering away as he relentlessly continued on to chapter one.

That was the first time in her life Vanya could remember laughing so hard her stomach hurt, leaning on Quintin for support as her vision grew blurry with tears.

* * *

It had been a suspiciously quiet, yet eventful week.

Vanya could count on one hand the times she had heard gossip about herself. One hand. In one week. All of them about her and Quintin, but she could learn to ignore those just like the rest.

While to most people, that would be a good thing to have fewer lies spread about you than usual. Something to celebrate even. However, to Vanya—who had had handfuls of rumors spread about her in a single class period _daily_ —this was, very much, a bad sign of something worse to come.

Although the phrase went ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’, Vanya couldn’t help but shove her face straight past the teeth and into its throat. Her nerves were on edge, emotions frayed from stress.

“Relax,” Quintin sighed from his desk behind her in trigonometry. “If you get any more tense, your shoulders will punch holes into your head.”

Vanya shot him a mock glare.

Raising his hands in mock surrender, he defended himself. “Hey, I’m only commenting because you’re blocking the board.”

“You’re a whole head taller than me.”

“What can I say,” he said, placing his head in his hand, “I just can’t keep my eyes off you.”

She faced the front hastily after that, ignoring the way her heart fluttered.

In orchestra, Vanya’s fingers wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how many deep breaths she took. During an especially difficult part in the middle of the second movement, all the other first violinists dropped out abruptly in order to make her mistakes stand out. A harsh shriek came from her strings in her surprise.

Crimson crept up her face in shame as the instructor reprimanded her playing before turning on the others.

A cold bead of sweat rolled down her back. That would not be the worst of it. The knowing certainty of her approaching suffering only brought chills to her skin. 

* * *

Her father was absent for dinner. Her food became a cold pile of mush before she threw it down the sink.

* * *

They broke her violin.

Vanya stared at the fractured pieces of her heart lying on the floor. The splinters of broken wood and twisted string sat in a desolate pile at her knees. She wanted to cry, wanted to drown in her sorrows forever at such an ugly show of malice, but the tears wouldn't come.

All her despair had been dammed by her fury.

In her hands, she clutched the shards tight enough to draw blood. Crescents of pain permanently seared into her skin. The shaking was uncontrollable as her grip tightened. She _wanted_ to feel the pain, to bathe in it.

Her blood trickled and trickled over her poor violin. If her tears wouldn’t work, blood would do, she supposed.

Those bastards would pay. She’d make sure of it. She’d snap all their fingers, shatter their dreams.

Vanya gagged.

She couldn’t do that. She _couldn’t._

God, she was so damn _weak._

Someone placed a warm hand on her trembling shoulder, shattering her wholly. Vanya whirled on them, the growl deep in her throat ricocheting off the walls. Her teeth clacked harshly with the force of her bite, trying desperately to catch fingers.

Everything was red and blurry in the darkness of the room. It took several blinks for her to see whoever had interrupted her. 

“Quintin,” she gasped.

She hadn’t even heard him walk in. 

His expression was guarded as he took her in. His gaze traveled from her creased brows and dry eyes to angry red cheeks, roamed over stiff shoulders and shaking arms until, finally, reaching her hands. 

A flare of shame washed over her as he observed the damage from his distance. Her hands were raw and openly bleeding all over the pieces of her violin. Quickly, Vanya turned away, using her hair to shield herself from any more scrutiny.

“Sorry.” Her voice cracked, hoarse from the shouting she had done earlier. She hadn’t expected anyone to hear her at the time. Or maybe she simply hadn’t cared if they did.

Crouching down in front of her, Quintin took her hands. “Don’t be.”

Vanya didn’t even have to argue when she said she wanted to keep the pieces. After applying the final bandage, Quintin had merely nodded and said to take them as a reminder.

That wasn’t a bad idea, she decided. She knew who had been involved. She had felt every one of their jealous stares boring holes into her back until they made scorch marks, even if she had pretended not to notice.

They’d done it on a Friday so they could give themselves a whole weekend's worth of celebrating. 

Vanya’s vision flashed red.

They had taken the coward’s route. 

Plucking the trash from the floor, Vanya decided on a shard for every last person who had taken part. These pieces? These she’d keep nearby, tucked away in someplace safe so she could pull them out as a reminder. People were cruel, and the world was cruel, and they would hurt you no matter the reason. 

She knew Quintin was watching her the whole time, silently studying her methodical combing. It was fine, he didn’t have to understand her reasoning. If he decided to leave her after this, she wouldn't mind. Loneliness was an old friend. She could relearn what it was like for it to be her only one.

Deep inside her chest, she felt another glass bottle settle on the shelf behind her lungs. She took a deep, long breath to let herself adjust to the new pain.

* * *

When she got home, her father had already heard the news. 

Coolly, he placed a new violin on his desk as he wrote in his notes with the other hand. He didn’t glance her way.

“How can you be expected to succeed when you allow for these hurdles to happen?” It was a rhetorical question. He never cared for her answer.

Vanya bit her cheek until she tasted blood while silently taking the gift.

Her father wasn’t even bothered that the violin her classmates had destroyed was the one her mother had left behind for her.

That night, Vanya didn’t sleep. The world was too unfair.

* * *

On Monday, Vanya had receded into herself, turning into a ghost. It hadn’t been that difficult. No one even noticed the difference.

Everything felt lukewarm. The air was fine, neither hot nor cold. Sound was distant and foggy. She barely heard the whispers. And if she focused hard enough, sometimes the world would have color again.

Quintin tried to speak to her. She knew because he kept grabbing her shoulder to get her to look in his direction. She couldn’t hear his words though. They sounded like he was behind a wall trying to shout through it.

If he hadn’t dragged her to the library, she didn't think she would have noticed that time had passed. It took several attempts on Quintin’s part to get her to eat. She hadn’t realized she was chewing on food until he shoved a water bottle into her lips to make her swallow it.

He might have read from a book, but it was hard to say. 

The sunlight filtering through the window was blindingly bright so Vanya shut her eyes. 

When she opened them, she was alone and surrounded by sterile shades of white.

The nurse’s office?

Quintin wasn’t there after that. No one spoke to her. Everything fell into a haze. She walked alone, letting the fog embrace her wholly. 

* * *

Vanya wasn’t sure when she came back into herself, but she knew at least some time had passed. 

When she walked down the main hall towards third period, she saw several of the kids who had brutalized her violin. Their backs were facing her, but she recognized the guilty verdicts hanging over their heads like a guillotine poised to strike. 

One was walking with a noticeable limp while the other two hunched over as if they couldn’t bear the weight of their own heads. The fourth had an arm in a sling.

An ugly part of her laughed and danced and cheered with glee at the justice fulfilled. It crowed away at the display of karma, gloating that they got what they’d deserved.

The nicer part of her had hoped it hadn’t hurt too much when the universe had given them their proper punishment.

When they had caught her staring, it was like the fear of God had been put in them. They scrambled away from her so suddenly, she barely registered which direction they had gone.

It took several occurrences for her to realize that they were running from _her._

Vanya sat up a little straighter in her classes after that. 

Quintin was in a surprisingly good mood too. He smirked at her around the split on his lip, outright laughing when she asked if he was hurt.

“This is nothing,” he boasted, ignoring the way that scab had reopened.

“It’s bleeding, Quintin!”

At that, he scoffed. “You should see the other guy.”

“At least let me help,” Vanya protested.

Raising a brow, he asked, “You got any antiseptic?” He had asked it in a way that he clearly expected the answer to be no. 

Well, she’d show him.

“Yes, actually.”

Vanya decided she liked that expression on his face afterward where he looked blatantly floored by her answer. 

For once, he sat there quietly as Vanya did the talking, treating his wounds while scolding him for not taking care of himself. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Flashes of a dark room and nimble fingers tending to her own scraped palms teased her all the while. Ignoring them, she gently smeared a glop of medicated lip balm over the cut.

* * *

It wasn’t until later when she was tucked away in bed that she fully realized how close she had been to Quintin’s face, pressing repeatedly on his lower lip with her fingertips and a cloth.

Rolling over, Vanya curled into a tight ball hoping her bed would swallow her whole. How could she be so oblivious?

She threw the pillow over her head to muffle her thoughts.

* * *

“You’ve got to learn to stand up for yourself, Vanya,” Quintin declared one day in late October around a mouthful of a fluffernutter. 

She had made them in secret after her father had locked himself in his study. She was pretty happy with how they turned out. But not so much with his comment.

“They’d eat me alive, Quintin.”

He gave her a look. “They already do that.”

Hanging her head in defeat, Vanya took a bite of her sandwich. She considered his advice, rolling the idea around in her head and picturing scenarios of going off on the assholes who had obliterated her violin and heart in one hit. It was hard to imagine. Each scene ended in Vanya ducking her head and running with her tail between her legs.

“It wouldn’t change anything,” she decided.

Quintin knocked his knee against hers in an attempt to get her attention. She stubbornly refused. “You don’t know that.” 

Of course he’d argue with her over this. Mr. Wright always had to be Mr. Right. She snorted at the joke. He’d be so angry with her if she said that out loud. “How would you know? You don’t get bullied.”

There was a long enough pause to force Vanya to finally look up. 

The silence felt heavy when she saw the way Quintin had bowed into himself. His shoulders were rigid and hunched as his elbows dug into his knees. Her eyes snagged on the way he clenched his jaw, teeth grinding like there were unsaid conversations trying to pry their way out. His eyes were distant and his mind miles away in a place she couldn’t follow. 

Vanya had never seen such a haunted look on him before.

“Quintin?” His name came out like a whisper, but his expression scared her. It was like a cornered animal, the way everything from his eyes to his jaw were stretched so tight. 

“There was a time,” he eventually ground out, sinking his nails into his knuckles. They were so white from how strongly he held them.

Hesitantly, she placed a hand on his arm. Even through his jacket, she could feel how stiffly he held himself, muscles stony under her palm.

Quintin’s eyes cut to her, pinning her in place from the intensity alone. “Something similar. To bullying. A—Harassment.” 

Her mouth fell into an ‘o’, hand unknowingly gripping his sleeve. Concern settled restlessly between her brows.

“There was a wo—a _girl_. She wanted to,” he fumbled for words, “date me, I guess is how you could put it. Wanted the whole world to know that I was hers. She’d convince them that we—” He blanched, eyebrows dipping dangerously.

Vanya’s voice cracked when she spoke. “It’s okay,” she consoled, smoothing out the wrinkles she had created. “You don’t have to share if it’s too painful.”

A rash of pink sprouted from his neck, crawling to his ears until settling on his cheeks. His glower blistered her insides. “It’s nothing,” he bit out.

She nodded shakily, retracting her hand at the rejection.

But Quintin stopped her, grasping her hand firmly in his to rest on his knee. “One day in class,” he marched on, “we had to do a...presentation. And she wanted to prove a point.” His breath was shaky when his fingers curled tighter around hers.

Gently, she placed another hand over his, rubbing a thumb across his punctured skin. “What happened, Quintin?”

He huffed and rolled his eyes jerkily. “She shoved a hand down my pants.”

Vanya didn’t even have to think. She folded her arms around him instantly, holding him close against her chest. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

Quintin sat there stiffly, frozen in his hunched state. It was difficult to say what was going through his mind, but Vanya hoped she wasn’t intruding. Softly, she rubbed soothing circles over his shoulders—the same way her mother had when she was little and didn’t even reach her knees.

Clearing his throat, Quintin pulled away abruptly. He kept his face neutral, a mask placed over the pain he had let her see only moments prior. “I’m fine.” The sea-green of his eyes had shifted to a dangerous hurricane.

“Quintin—”

“This was supposed to be about you.”

“But—”

“Do you want to know what I did?” He interrupted. The face he wore now was a lot like the one he used for the other students: cold and removed and _mean_. 

He had never directed it towards her before.

Vanya hugged her arms. “What did you do?” she whispered.

Quintin smiled a cruel smile. “I chopped her hand off.”

She stared, fingers clasping her jacket for support.

He laughed low and bitter. “Just kidding.”

He hadn’t sounded like he was.

Vanya frowned at him. He had stretched out along the couch, placing an elbow perfectly on the armrest while draping the other over the back. One foot lay resting on his knee. It was so posed. A staged composure.

“What did you really do.”

His gaze was withering. She couldn't help but flinch. Her eyes remained steady though, searching and prying for any hint of truth or honesty.

He wilted, bravado gradually falling away to reserve. “I went to the principal and had her expelled,” he sighed, dropping his head into his hand.

There was something in the way he had said it that made Vanya sure it wasn’t the whole truth. However, she knew she couldn’t go any further without overstepping boundaries. If Quintin didn’t want to share the ending, Vanya would accept that.

She wondered, in the back of her mind, if that incident was what had made him transfer.

Carefully, like she was approaching a wild cat, Vanya reached for him once again. She let her hand hang in the air between them so that he could make the final decision.

His cruel mask was gone when he considered it, face melting back into the Quintin she knew. When he glanced up at her, his eyes were gentle and green. The storm in them had passed. For the time being at least.

“You have to take action, Vanya,” he implored. “You can’t let them hurt you anymore.” 

His voice was so strained with distress, Vanya couldn’t think to do anything but agree. She nodded. She would try.

Quintin accepted her hand.

* * *

Vanya slammed the door shut to her room. It wasn’t like dad would hear it anyway. He stayed on the opposite side of the house in the farthest room possible from hers.

It had been another horrible discussion about her studies and applications for college. Another reminder of how inadequate she was and how she’d never live up to the family named she had been blessed with. Just by existing she was tainting the name, soaking it in shades of mediocracy.

_‘The improvement of your playing has reached that of a snail’s pace. Soon it will stagnate before plummeting tremendously. At this rate, you will never amount to anything.’_

Her blood boiled, hot and angry as it wound through her veins in tight spirals and rigid twists. Every movement felt forced and jarring, like she had turned into a puppet without a master to pull the strings.

Everything felt too hot. Her skin felt sensitive and prickly. A thousand fire ants had found their way into her body, gouging trails and dens underneath her skin. She wanted to rip it off, take everything off. 

Yanking violently, Vanya ripped off the jacket of her uniform and tossed it into a corner. Next came the tie, vest, socks. She wanted to throw more things, wanted to break something before she broke herself.

Her eyes caught on a box. _The_ box. She snatched it away from under her bed, wrenching it open and smiling at the satisfying crack of the clasp snapping. Inside, chunks of her violin stared up at her. Broken, busted, defeated.

Looking at them only made her angrier. She couldn’t control her breathing, the air rushing in and out of her lungs rapidly. The world was spinning but she was sitting so still in a jumble on the floor.

Blood splashed on her skin, staining it red. Another drop. And another. A nosebleed. Dripping and dripping away all over her already tarnished violin. 

Quintin’s words echoed in her mind. They spun and tumbled around in the empty space her thoughts had vacated.

_‘You have to take action, Vanya.’_

_‘You can’t let them hurt you anymore.’_

The once warm brown of the wood now tinted black turned red once more with new blood. The edges of her vision blurred black, narrowing in on the sight.

_‘Fight back. Use teeth if you have to.’_

_‘They’re already fighting dirty, what’s a few bite marks.’_

Vaguely, she remembered that most of them didn’t take their instruments to the dorms when school was over. To them, it was just a hobby. An easy class to fill up their schedules. They just shoved the poor things into their lockers to collect dust like an unwanted child.

She took in the sight of her violin, all seven pieces discarded in an old decorative wooden box she had previously kept for discarded warm-up pieces. Each chunk a reminder for every individual involved plus one piece for herself.

Tomorrow morning at five would be a good time for independent study. The practice rooms were empty at that time since most people were just waking up. She could practice for hours and hours without any interruption, no one would even know she had been there by the end of it.

Yes. That’s what she’d do.

Tomorrow at five, she would practice.

* * *

A symphony of gasps and shouts greeted Vanya’s ears while she put together her bow. It was a whirlwind of ‘what the fuck’s, ‘who the hell’s, and even a ‘who cut my fucking strings.’ Music to her ears.

Vanya made sure her music sheets were neatly placed on the stand before taking in the chaos that was currently unfolding. The third chairs behind her were pale and ashen. In their hands rested the snapped necks of their violins. The slashed strings spiraled and curled around their fingers, hugging skin like creeping vines. 

When they noticed her staring, she received mixed reactions. Two or three gave her blank expressions, unable to process what she had hoped she had made obvious. The others stared in scarlet indignation, realization dawning in their furious eyes.

Vanya smiled leisurely, eyes sharp and daring them to call her out. It should be clear who had done it. After all, she had left them each a little present.

For once, their glares didn’t scare her. The rage crackling in their eyes looked like fireworks to her. A victory. They couldn't touch her, not outright, and they knew it.

It took a second or two, but eventually they were the first to break eye contact. Some more reluctant than others. 

Returning her attention back to her music, Vanya fiddled with the sheets one last time. It was likely the instructor would have them work on the second movement today now that most of the third violins were out of commission. 

Vanya laughed to herself. The smile that stretched across her face could only be described as feral.

If they wanted a bitch, she’d be a bitch.

* * *

“It hurt a little to destroy those poor violins,” Vanya whispered to Quintin in study period, pretending to read from her book. “They didn’t do anything wrong.” 

She had her eyes low, skimming the page. This time it was trig homework which she was perfectly fine with ignoring to gloat with Quintin.

“It was a necessary evil,” he nodded sagely, tapping a pencil against his chin to look as though he were in deep thought. It was an essay about the symbolism of some classic novel. Child’s play in terms of essays, to put in Quintin’s words.

She peeked over at him, giddiness taking over as she beamed. “You should have seen the looks on their faces. If looks could kill!” 

He smiled at her in amusement. “You sound pleased as punch about that,” Quintin pointed out, lifting an eyebrow at her before returning to his essay, smirk stubbornly in place. 

“They were so _angry,_ ” she breathed. “They would have stabbed me with their eyeballs if they could’ve.”

Vanya had returned to her homework, filling in a quick answer for a question she had barely glanced at. One wrong answer was fine as long as she got the others right. 

_Right?_

So caught up with her mental debate, the loud cough from Quintin startled her completely. Glancing over, he had a fist pressed to his mouth trying like mad to hold back his laugh. It took several attempts to clear his throat before he was able to speak again.

“It’s like baby’s first revenge,” he fought out. “Congratulations.”

Vanya blushed. That look would be the end of her, dangerous and intoxicating. His smile was wide and addicting, the dimple on his cheek deep. She wanted to trace it, brush her fingertips along the creases of his smile. That expression was so rare she wished she could capture it forever to store in a jar. 

Laughter fading, he gazed at her appraisingly like he was finally seeing something in her that he hadn't known was there before. His eyes crinkled lightly with mirth. The sunlight streaming through the window hit him softly, coating him in a glow that highlighted the green in his eyes. 

Deep in her chest, Vanya felt her heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings. Blood rushed to her cheeks as speech left her, stretching out the contented silence between them. 

Someone cleared their throat.

Vanya snapped to attention, straightening up in her seat instantly. She hadn’t even realized she’d been leaning in closer. 

“Study period is for studying. I will separate you two if you continue this behavior.”

_Oh God._

“Yes, ma’am,” they chimed in unison.

She’d been halfway in the isle hadn’t she? Did Quintin notice? Half her ass must have been _hanging off_ the chair. There was no way he hadn’t noticed. He totally saw that. Groaning, Vanya buried her head in her arms.

Quintin tried to get her attention again once the professor left them, but Vanya couldn’t handle the rejection. Not so soon after a victory. Mortified, she resolved to pour over her homework the rest of the period. It was time to take math seriously. At least until school let out.

Straightening, she erased her previous answer and read the question more carefully, fully ignoring her friend’s attempts at conversation.

* * *

Before she realized, several weeks had passed since she last spoke to Quintin.

It was an accident, going on this long avoiding him. But preparation for the SATs, ACTs, and video auditions left Vanya on the brink of a nervous breakdown almost every other hour. 

She’d be taking the tests in late December and she needed all the time she could get. Her results from junior year had been mediocre at best, floating somewhere in the mid-range percentiles. Her father had thrown a fit and nearly disowned her on the spot once she revealed them to him. Afterwards, he worked her like a dog over winter break and the rest of junior year.

When those efforts proved fruitless however, dad had finally caved and let her put ninety percent of her focus on music and violin. She had been studying and practicing certain pieces for years for the sole purpose of college auditions, but now that the time was growing nearer, she doubted every last trill, chord, staccato, glissando, vibrato, you name it. Vanya felt like an imposter.

Her father had agreed, if she couldn’t make it to an Ivy League school, a prestigious music school would work well enough. So, Vanya had set her sights on Julliard. It had the prestige and was a recognizable name, so it would suit dad just fine. However, she wasn’t delusional. She knew it was a lost cause.

Then came Berklee which was just as unlikely as the focus was on contemporary and modern styles of music. Then Curtis Institute of Music with its low acceptance rate. Eastman, USC Thornton School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the list went on long enough it made her feel woozy just thinking about it.

Each time she’d start the recording—even just for the scales and arpeggios—Vanya’s fingers would freeze and fumble. It took several attempts to finally capture a video worth sending in. But slowly she was building up her repertoire. _Painfully_ so.

She had to bottle up her butterflies every time she hit record, bury the pesky bugs beyond piles and piles of dirt and bone. But like worms during a storm, they came crawling back up to disturb her concentration. 

Vanya wanted to scream, to shout and yell and complain and whine to the world about all the time she had to sink into auditions when she knew it was futile. Every slice on her calloused fingertip would amount to nothing. Every minute lost to technique and emotion would result in a friend that would leave her in the end.

Her throat felt thick.

_Quintin._

He didn’t sit with her anymore. He had completely ditched the library, abandoned it to collect dust and rot. 

Abandoned _her._

She had seen where he went during lunch, who he sat with. So much for the other students being sheep, she thought to herself bitterly. 

A sour note filled the practice room, ringing long and ugly.

_Ugh!_

That stupid Paganini piece would drive her to insanity! She adjusted her grip on the fingerboard, aligning the bow just right.

Stupid Quintin for stupidly distracting her when she stupidly needed to be stupidly perfect. She’d show him. She’d conquer this piece so well, people would come flocking to her, begging for her attention. They’d want to know everything about her and learn to love her. Harder and stronger than he ever did.

Inside her chest, Vanya felt a bottle crack. Her heart heaved painfully like a shard had gotten loose and pinched her.

Angry, she sliced her bow viciously across the strings, venting her frustrations in one fell swoop. The shriek pierced her ears before the string could.

It snapped.

Vanya stared down dejectedly at the frayed string. The string stared back, curled in a hopeless shrug.

She cried.

* * *

Thanksgiving break came so suddenly, Vanya blinked and she was in a cocktail dress, prancing around the mansion like her father’s show pony. Because of course he did. In private, she was a disappointment, an embarrassment. But to the public eye, he was a loving father, proud of his daughter’s accomplishments.

So proud in fact, he had her perform a classical piece that sounded impressive but was so easy, it was insulting. Vanya could have played it in her sleep the song was so below her skill level. Although, a traitorous thought in the back of her mind was thankful he hadn’t made her perform a piece she wasn’t ready for. 

Vanya sighed in the small spot in the corner of the room she had claimed for herself, watching as guests schmoozed and mingled their way to the top of the social hierarchy. 

Watching it all made her heart ache. She hated how invisible she felt and how anxious she became when she suddenly wasn’t. Doing anything else, being anywhere else would have been a tremendous improvement.

She could have been practicing with her music instructor, recording auditions for college for the pieces that needed a piano accompaniment. She could have been reading that Tolstoy novel for her world lit final essay. Hell, she could have been sleeping and it would have been more productive than being paraded around the ballroom all Saturday. 

Once again, her father signaled for the conductor to play the next song, issuing the end of the intermission.

At the beginning rhythm of a waltz, guests quickly began coupling up, clasping hands and touching hips. Intimate gestures.

All it did was remind Vanya of how her dad wouldn’t allow her a phone. She couldn’t even call or text Quintin if she wanted to. If they were still talking. She couldn’t tell anymore. It hurt too much to think about so she quickly dashed those thoughts.

Someone sidled up to her, pressing their shoulder to hers. “I’m not quite as spry as I once was,” Pogo spoke, “but I believe I could manage a waltz. If you’re up to it, of course.”

“Thanks, Pogo.” Vanya smiled. “But I think I’ll sit this one out.” Her heart still throbbed painfully in her chest, the Quintin issue pressing on her like a sheet of concrete. 

Nodding, Pogo turned his attention to the dance floor. Vanya joined him, watching on as the guests spun and twirled in that elegant way of theirs. 

Her father didn’t often join in on these dances, but when he did it was to ensure a deal of some sort. Something like a bribe for a particular after-school activity to get special treatment that year. Last year, at a different event, she had overheard the discussion for a focus on the arts. Dance specifically. Vanya didn’t pay too much attention to it, usually trying her best to find the appropriate time to make a swift exit.

But there he was, dear old dad dancing about the room with a woman so overdressed Vanya felt embarrassed for her. Her face was painted, lips cherry red, and her hair done up in a style that vaguely reminded her of the fifties. The red heels she wore didn’t quite match her dress, but then again, Vanya wasn’t all that caught up on fashion trends.

“He cares for you,” Pogo assured her, halting her train of thought. “In his own way.”

Vanya glanced over at him, taking in the way he held his body in a permanent shrug like he lived solely to excuse her father’s actions. The smile he offered was apologetic, and for a moment Vanya felt sorry for him. 

Scoffing softly, she stated, “he hates me.” She couldn’t help the way her eyes flickered over to him. In the back of her mind, she briefly considered she felt the same way. Then immediately felt bad for harboring that thought in the first place.

“He loves things from a distance. When you’re older, you'll understand.”

Vanya doubted she ever would. 

If her dad’s way of loving someone was by tearing out their roots and offering only a single drop of water on occasion, she would much prefer to be the soil which never really needed water much to begin with. He could only ever love cacti and Vanya wasn’t that. She just wasn’t. Vanya was a cattail that required more than just a droplet. She craved lake-fulls.

She wanted love. _Needed_ it. 

* * *

Once the party was over and the last guest left, her dad, of course, had something to say.

“There was much more you could have done with that piece tonight. It was child’s play and yet you still could not transcend its level of difficulty.”

Vanya grit her teeth, bones creaking under the pressure.

“Next time, you will either play better or not at all. That is all. Dismissed.”

Vanya screamed herself raw into her pillow that night.

* * *

Curious, furious, and fed up with everything, Vanya followed Quintin to his new lunch spot. She’d done it before—several times actually—but something about this time felt different. 

It was a deep rooted certainty that pushed her forward to shadow him down the halls. Today, she would confront him like he had told her to before. All those weeks ago when he had shown her how vulnerable he could be. How easily he could break.

She didn’t want to break him though. No, she just wanted to _talk_ to him again. The sound of his laugh was fading quickly from her memory and she hated how much she missed it. It was an aching pain in her heart, an absence of something she didn't quite know what to call.

So, she followed him.

He was walking with a whole group of kids, lingering in the back but keeping up with their conversation. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, walking at a leisurely pace. She hated how comfortable he looked with them. Something burned her insides as she watched them.

Three of them were a part of the group who had hurt her. How could he fit in with them so easily? She watched closely as one of them shoved the other in the shoulder, laughter ugly and loud. She wanted to wipe it from his stupid face. For his violin, she had broken its neck in several pieces and cut all the strings.

_Where’s Quintin?_

She nearly lost him, lost in ugly thoughts that she wanted to forget. But there he was, slipping away down the hall that led to the wing of the headmaster's office. There weren’t any classrooms in that direction, it was all offices for staff and their teacher’s lounge. 

Why’s he headed that way?

Did he have a college visit coming up? Was it about grades? Was he getting suspended? Was he transferring? Did a relative die?

All these anxious thoughts churned around in her head as she snuck down the hallway, hiding behind open doors and water fountains just in case.

It didn’t make much sense though. Her father wouldn’t be in today, he had a meeting with some other pretentious school principal or something. He wouldn’t be on campus for three whole days. 

It was honestly a blessing.

With her dad gone, it was likely Pogo would be the one sitting around in the office. He often acted in her father’s stead despite not technically being the deputy headmaster. 

Peeking from behind an office door belonging to a professor—biology? Russian? AP lit?—she vaguely knew about, Vanya watched with bated breath.

It wasn’t Pogo’s silhouette framed in the privacy glass. Through the patchwork of colors, Vanya made out the form of a woman leaning over to stroke Quintin’s cheek. She left her hand there for a considerably long time. 

A sickening feeling settled in Vanya’s gut at the sight. She couldn’t look at it anymore, the way the woman stood over him like a lover. The gesture was far too gentle to be anything else. 

Vanya turned and ran like the coward she was.

* * *

Quintin placed a to-go cup on Vanya’s desk ten minutes before class started as a peace offering. He smiled sheepishly at her while doing so, scooting it closer when she didn’t reach for it immediately.

Vanya stole a move from his book and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, so you’re acknowledging me now?” she asked dryly.

He frowned. “You’re one to ta—you know what? No.” He put his hands up. “I’m sorry for bailing on you at lunch the last couple of weeks.” 

He didn’t sound sorry, more like he was just saying it to get the apology out of the way. “Yeah? So what’s your excuse?” She wanted him to be sorry for walking with those brutes, wanted him to feel so immensely overwhelmed with guilt for even associating with them. She wanted him to be crushed by the shame of speaking to that lady, treating her like he loved her when he did the same to Vanya.

So, she waited. The drink sat beside her hands, untouched and steaming.

If there was a record for the world's longest sigh, Quintin might’ve just broken it with how drawn out he made it. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, tousling it in a way that made Vanya’s heart leap. 

She frowned harder at him. He was playing dirty.

“I—” he began, eyes searching the room “—I got caught up in college planning, campus visits, scholarships. All that stuff.”

Vanya watched him, looking for a sign that he knew what she did. “And? What else?”

“What?”

“What else are you sorry for?”

His eyes were hard as he looked at her, searching just as much as she was for an answer. “What did you see?”

Shrugging, she pretended to casually pick at her nails. “If you don’t know, then you can’t apologize.”

 _“Dammit, Vanya!”_ he hissed, causing her to jolt. “Why won’t you talk to me anymore? You were the one to push me away first.” His voice was desperate and broken, arms crossed like he was trying to comfort himself.

She stared up at him like a lost rabbit. Had he ever sounded like that before? Even when he shared his story? He looked so pale and ashen she wanted to put some color back into him. 

Carefully, she took the cup, nursing the hot drink in her hands. The overpowerful aroma of mint and honey hit her nose instantly. Quintin had remembered it was her favorite tea. She took a sip, savoring the flavor and the way the warmth flowed through her on it’s way to her stomach. 

Glancing up shyly, she offered a small apology, “I’m sorry, Quintin.” He seemed to relax at that, so she continued. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I guess I just—” she looked down at her tea, wiping a thumb over the lip of the lid “—got scared. I’ve never had a friend before, you know?”

He nodded, arms uncrossing as he reached for a strand of her hair that had fallen out of place. His touch was so gentle she stopped breathing momentarily.

“I’m sorry too,” he sighed. “For everything. Anything.”

Vanya pictured that woman stroking his cheek, something dark bubbling inside of her. But she set it aside. He had apologized, so she’d accept it for now.

“Hey, are you still struggling with trig?” He asked suddenly.

“I—yes. Yeah. Why?”

“I could tutor you,” he offered. “Over winter break, since it’s coming up. It’s before your SATs right?”

She nodded dumbly. “And my ACTs.”

“Great,” he said, sounding relieved. “I can help you then. Maybe at your place?” 

Quintin sounded so hopeful it made her heart ache a little. Her dad would never allow it. But this was a first among many he had given her, and Vanya wanted so badly to seize it with her lonely, greedy hands.

“I’ll have to ask my dad.”

Quintin nodded. “Let me know if you can.”

So, she would ask him.

* * *

“Absolutely not.”

Vanya took that as a yes.

* * *

It took some silent maneuvering and a couple underused hallways for Vanya to sneak Quintin in, but she managed it fairly well. It helped that he was pretty light on his feet. If she hadn’t known he was behind her, she wouldn’t have even recognized he was there.

“You’re weirdly good at this,” she mumbled to him while avoiding a creaky floorboard. She waved for him to follow, tiptoeing over another landmine of a floor. 

“Lots of practice,” he snarked. 

Smiling over her shoulder, she snarked back, “What, snuck out of the house for all those wild high school parties?”

“Those red solo cups are hard to resist.”

Laughing, Vanya grabbed his arm to drag him through her door. It would be near impossible for her father to hear them now so they didn’t need to worry anymore about being too loud. 

Still giggling, Vanya directed Quintin to pull up a chair, pointing to the one she had wedged between the wall and her desk. She had cleared it of her rumpled school uniform earlier, shoving it in the hamper in her closet after it had been sitting there since school let out two days ago.

“So, where exactly do you need help?” He had one foot crossed over his knee, looking over the notebooks she had thrown haphazardly on her desk.

“Well trig for sure.” She picked out the blue one from the rest of the pile, plopping that down near Quintin. “Just for class. But on the SATs, I did pretty well on the reading and comprehension portion last year. And essay’s come easy to me. So, just math in general I guess,” she answered, taking a seat. 

Quickly, she shuffled the books around, looking for the SAT prep book from last year. “This”—she held up the book— “only managed to make me worse.”

“Well, let’s take a look then.”

Vanya flipped to a random page, margins filled to the brim with her furious scribbles. It was embarrassing to look at them again, painful memories of tearing up while pouring over these pages jabbed at her instantaneously. Her ears prickled with the shame. 

Clearing her throat, Vanya tried to pretend it wasn’t affecting her as much as it was. “So, I may have struggled a bit here…” She tried for a joke.

Quintin shot her a look before turning back to the page. “That’s one way of putting it,” he mumbled. “Here, let me see.” 

Scooting in closer, he snuck a peek at the page over her shoulder. Vanya could feel the heat radiating off of him, his shoulder nearly pressed against her back. Her ears pinked for a different reason in that moment.

It was hard to say if Quintin could even make out what was all there. She was the one who had written out the work and even she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The scribbles were so tangled up it was basically impossible to discern formulas from equations. There was even a doodle that looked alarmingly similar to a music staff. Was that the piece she had been studying last year?

Vanya wanted to bury her face into her hands. 

Quintin hmmed behind her, the timbre of his voice filling her ear. “There’s the problem,” he pointed out, using his finger to show where she had gone wrong. “You used the right formula but you switched the variables. The question is asking for this”—he pointed at the second line of the word problem—“and not that.”

By this point, Vanya was a hot mess, blushing so bright she might as well wear yellow and green and call herself a stoplight. Quintin was so close, his body folded in on her as he hovered over the study book. She felt oddly safe, cocooned in his warmth with his voice lingering by her ear. 

“Get it?”

Vanya froze. “Um.”

He glanced at her, taking notice the way her shoulders tensed and the color in her cheeks. 

_Oh, God._

“Could you repeat that?” she squeaked out.

Several hours passed after that. Thankfully, she eventually got over her embarrassment, but that didn’t make learning that much easier. There involved a lot of groaning from her end and yelling from his. It took quite a bit of trial and error, but eventually Quintin found a way to teach her the equations that she couldn’t make sense of only a day prior and Vanya was beyond grateful.

“You’re a lifesaver, Quintin,” she said through a stretch. They had finished the last problem, Vanya getting the correct answer on her own with him looking over her work. Her back released with a pop and she sighed in contentment. 

He smirked at her, head raised in a smug pride. “And does this lifesaver get a treat for his efforts?”

Vanya tossed him the saran wrapped sandwich. “Here, you heathen.”

“It’s what I deserve,” he grinned, unwrapping his well earned snack. 

“Your humility is staggering.”

Shrugging, Quintin took a bite. “What can I say?” he boasted around a mouthful of peanut butter, “I’m a Saint.”

She rolled her eyes.

They settled into a comfortable silence, Vanya sitting back in her desk chair and Quintin leaning against the desk. He had discarded his chair a while back, leaving it to pace as he tried to explain the mechanics behind one formula or the other. 

Maybe he preferred to be moving? She had noticed the way he always seemed to be fidgeting during class, how he talked with his hands, that when he sat down he got up as soon as he was able. In the library, he was constantly flipping through books, jumping from one paragraph to another.

Even now, she observed the way his eyes flit across her room, taking in everything about it: her bed, perfectly made, tucked into the corner away from her window, the closet door she always kept sealed shut, the bookcases she had pressed up along one wall. 

Something new caught his attention and she went to look, freezing at the sight of her music stand nestled by the window. Her violin rested on the side table that held her metronome. 

_Oh no._

He wasn’t going to—

“Could you play me something?”

—he was.

Vanya flushed fiercely. “You don’t want that,” she urged. “I’ll just make your eardrums bleed.”

“Yeah, okay Ms. First Chair,” he teased. 

“Quintin, _really._ I’m not that good.”

He paused in his eating to look at her. “Please?”

His eyes grew soft on her, brows scrunching in just the right way to remind her of a begging golden retriever. She was transfixed, caught like a fly in his web.

“Screw you,” Vanya whined, getting up from her seat reluctantly.

Crawling as sluggishly as she could over to her violin, she made sure to make every move as agonizingly tedious as possible. Thus, she took great care to be as precise as possible when adjusting the tension screw of her bow, fiddled with the bridge to make sure it was sitting just right, and even adjusted the pegs to guarantee she was perfectly in tune.

Throughout all this, Quintin didn’t make a single complaint, watching her as patiently as she had ever seen him. It put butterflies in her stomach, different from the kinds that came when she was nervous.

And honestly, she wasn’t feeling very scared at all. She was kind of excited, never having had a personal audience before outside her dad or Pogo.

The butterflies flapped their wings, lingering until Vanya forced the feeling down. After a quick warm up consisting of a couple quick scales she spun to face Quintin, shaky smile stubbornly plastered to her face. “Any requests?”

“Whichever’s your favorite.”

Vanya nodded, pondering on the piece to play. There was no way she was touching that particular Paganini piece, but maybe a different one? 

No...she wasn’t confident enough in those, no matter how much she loved them.

Her favorite? She had so many. What would Quintin want to hear? A Tchaikovsky piece perhaps? Yeah, that would do.

Pulling out the drawer of the side table, she quickly flipped through her accordion folder of sheet music. For just this moment, she was grateful for her dad’s strict upbringing about organization. 

She liked Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, second movement. Sad as it was, the melody of it had always stuck out to her. Not to mention it was reasonably short so she wouldn’t bore Quintin for too long. Most of it she had memorized, but just in case she swiftly placed it on the stand, arranging the papers neatly.

Vanya raised her violin to her chin, positioning it properly before raising the bow. She took a deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs fully, before letting it out slowly through her mouth.

The first note rang clear. Then the second, the third, and so she continued, coaxing out the notes to form the whole of the somber melody. She let it swirl and swirl around her, notes winding through the air, curling in her hair and carrying her off to someplace where the world disappeared and all that was left was sound. Music breathed through her now, filling her lungs, her gut, her heart, everything with soft melodies. Behind her eyelids, notes danced in time, twirling together in a melancholic waltz. Everything was pure sound. Simple, beautiful, and wonderful.

Quintin’s applause shocked her out of her state, bringing back to her bedroom where the sunlight streamed through her window in soft rays. He was looking at her like he had never seen her before, eyes boring holes every place they glanced.

Feeling bashful, Vanya shyly folded in on herself, hugging her violin to her chest. “How—” she cleared her throat. “How was it?”

“That was incredible, Vanya.”

There was no way her face could get any more red, and yet her skin betrayed her, a deep blush spanning from her ears to her chest. An anxious sweat came over her, the room feeling as though it had gone up by several degrees. “You’re just saying that,” she tried to joke. It came out jumbled and clunky, her tone not quite matching.

“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t bullshit you.”

“Quintin—”

“You always talk as if you’re a horrible violinist. I was beginning to believe that maybe Hargreeve’s had bought you that chair,” he explained, tossing the saran wrap into the trash bin beside her desk.

That had stung her a bit. As much as it hurt though, Vanya couldn't really blame him. She minimized her playing so often it had become a habit, a natural state of being in a way.

“But you’re _not_ , Vanya,” he went on, brushing the crumbs on his pants. Reaching out a hand, he took hers gently. “You’re amazingly talented.”

The warmth of his hand seeped into her own, filling her body with a fire like she was a hearth and he was the feeder. His praise brought blooming shades of pink to her cheeks, coloring them with something different than embarrassment. The corners of her lips rose upward in a slow growing smile.

Vanya’s eyes felt wet as she looked up at him, beaming. “Thank you,” she whispered.

For just a moment, Vanya felt as though she could believe him, that she could believe in herself.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon by the time Vanya was able to sneak Quintin down a corridor that led to some random side door that went out into the garden. The windows that had the curtains drawn back shined black, exposing a starless sky. It was hard to believe that only a few hours prior, Vanya’s bedroom had been filled with light and laughter unlike the halls which were dark and desolate. 

Vanya held Quintin’s hand in her own for comfort. She hated walking down these halls at night.

“And _I_ refuse your offer,” came the firm voice of her father, richotetting off the walls. 

Quintin's hand tightened in her own, drawing her towards him as he hid them between one of the large baroque vases her father kept to show off. Looking up at him, he placed a finger over his lips as a silent warning. Vanya nodded, lowering her gaze back to his chest.

“Merging our businesses would be advantageous to just one party. How am I expected to acquiesce to such an unremarkable proposal?”

Vanya jolted, voice sciezing in the back of her throat. Dad’s voice was so close. 

Too close.

Unconsciously, her hand clutched at Quintin’s shirt, pulling the material taught. She was crushed between his body and the porcelain, but she was shivering like she had a fever. Quintin’s hand on her back gently rubbed small circles in comfort. 

“Do not threaten me! We both know the power I wield.”

There. Right there, in the center of the crossroads of the corridor, stood her father coolly arguing on the phone. 

Vanya curled tighter into Quintin.

_Please don’t go left, please don’t go left, please don’t go left._

He went right. 

“Absolutely not. Come back with a better offer, you—” But his words were cut off as he made it to the end of the hall and turned again, disappearing.

Releasing a shaky breath, Vanya felt herself slowly relax. That was a close call. There was no telling what punishment her father would have unleashed. Especially with the bad mood he was already in.

Vanya went to step out from behind the vase, but Quintin’s hold kept her in place. 

When she looked up, Quintin was pale, eyes hollowed and vacant as they bore into the hallway her father had just gone down.

“Quintin?”

He flinched. 

Vanya placed a hand on his arm, watching. “You okay?”

“I—yeah.” Shaking his head, he released his hold on her. He tried to hide it, but she saw the way his hands trembled. “That was a close one.”

When he finally escaped through the side door, he still looked shaken.

* * *

The new semester started back up with as little fanfare as to be expected when there wasn’t a new student to spice up the gossip. Everyone instead focused more on what colleges they applied for, what their test results were, things like that.

And for once, Vanya didn’t feel left out or targeted by their whispering because she had sent in her applications too. Thanks to Quintin, her SAT and ACT results had come back much higher than she could have ever imagined. Even her father had given her an approving nod once he saw them. Not to mention, all her pre-screening auditions had been compiled and sent out along with everything else.

All that needed doing now was practicing her pieces for the live auditions. If her recordings got approved that is.

Anxiety gnawed away at her stomach, chewing through the nerves and making an absolute mess of her.

“Relax,” Quintin nudged her as they walked to their first periods. She had trigonometry first thing and he had physics. ‘Shitty luck for both of them,’ Quintin had commented. “You applied to how many colleges?”

“Fifteen.”

He whistled. “Jesus.”

Vanya could feel the bags returning under her eyes just from the memories of all those sleepless nights compiling applications. “Yeah,” she rasped.

“I’m sure you’re bound to get plenty of yes’s.”

She clawed at his arm, accidentally making his coffee slosh. “But how do you _know?_ ” 

“ _Shit—_ Vanya! Vanya,” he repeated her name softer that time. “You’re a gifted violinist. If those snotty bureaucratic asshats can’t see that, then they don’t deserve your talent.”

She bit her lip, rolling it under her teeth as her mind ran rampant with doubt. “But I do need them to see it,” she pleaded, squeezing his arm tighter for emphasis. 

“Then wow them at the live auditions. You have that Paganini piece right?”

Timidly, she nodded.

“You have it memorized?”

More sure, she nodded again.

“There you go.”

Right. She had the Paganini piece. She had it memorized. She just needed to practice. A lot. Repeatedly, relentlessly, religiously.

Nodding vigorously now, Vanya said, “Okay I—Yeah.”

So, she practiced. And practiced and practiced. And she practiced some more, even during lunch. For weeks, her world shrank to violin, music, practice, and Quintin. 

* * *

Vanya was on her way to a practice room, taking an out-of-way route to avoid those third chairs, when she heard them. A woman’s voice that sounded raspy and flippant and a boy’s that sounded mildly annoyed. 

She knew that voice. It was _his_ voice.

“Come now Five—”

“Quintin,” he corrected.

“Quintin. How cute,” the woman cooed. “Do you really think you’re going to hear back from those colleges?”

He scoffed. “Obviously not.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she laughed coldly. “Although, please, do enlighten me. Why is it taking so long?” the woman nettled in sing-song.

Vanya couldn’t make any sense of the conversation. Why was the woman so rude? Why did Quintin think he’d be rejected when he had so adamantly encouraged her? 

“It’s complicated,” he grit out, words stilted.

“It’s a simple mission, kid.” The woman sounded so flatly unamused. “You get in, kill the mark, and get out.”

Vanya threw a hand over her mouth. 

_Kill?_

“The mark is complicated,” he ground out.

“Oh right,” she drawled, almost as if she were bored with the conversation, “your little girlfriend.”

Vanya heard the clacking sound of heels as the woman—circled?— came closer to Quintin—Five? What did ‘five’ even _mean?_

_What is happening?_

“Falling for the mark’s daughter, Five?” she criticized. “How cliché.”

_Wait...daughter?_

Did that woman mean _her_? They wanted to kill her father? 

What? What was going on?

Vanya clamped a second hand over her mouth, wishing uselessly that it would make her disappear on the spot. She couldn’t hear anymore of this, nothing made any sense. It was like the world had turned into a snowglobe, all these pieces coming loose and floating around in a swirl that made her head spin.

She bolted, heedless of how her footsteps slapped on the tiled floor.

* * *

That night Vanya tried to warn her father that someone wanted him dead, cursing herself silently for not getting the woman’s name.

His simple reply: “Many lesser people do.”

Her stomach fell. “Dad—”

“Enough with this nonsense. Be silent and eat your meal.”

Why wouldn’t he listen to her? She was trying to help him!

“I didn’t see who—”

“Number Seven!”

Vanya’s heart stopped, sputtered, died. Her limbs became cold, numb, fingertips prickling like static. 

It had been a long time since she had heard that name. 

Not long enough.

“You will obey my orders or be punished accordingly. Do you understand?” His eyes were icy and cruel with warning. Not even a shred of fear, or guilt, or warmth, or _any_ kind of decent human emotion shown through. 

For the first time since she was small, Vanya felt the pain suffocating her heart like it was trying to bottle that too. 

vanya nodded silently.

The food was poison slithering down her throat.

Some time late in the night she threw it all up, clinging to the toilet like it was a life preserver. 

* * *

Quintin didn’t show up on Wednesday.

Vanya felt like she was looking through a foggy car window, the world was faded and blurry. Her heart hadn’t stopped thumping wildly since she woke up that morning. Blood flowed freely through her veins, scorching her insides with confused fear.

She just wanted answers. She just wanted to ask Quintin what was going on. Wanted to confirm that he wasn’t really involved with whatever that woman was talking about. It was all a misunderstanding.

Why would they want to kill her dad? He was just a principal. If they wanted money, they could have just asked her. She would have found a way to sneak some out.

On and on these thoughts raced through her head, tossing and turning, caught in a tidal wave that only kept coming and never receding.

But Quintin never showed.

* * *

The next day, Vanya’s body was cold and tense, tired from how stiffly she held herself yesterday. She couldn’t feel her toes.

Her brain was no better off, feeling hollow and stale from two restless nights in a row. No sleep had come to her, mind buzzing relentlessly with excuses upon excuses to comprehend what she had overheard.

She had to have misunderstood right? But what else would kill be used for? A mark ment a target, she knew that much at least. 

But Quintin didn’t show up that day either. So, she could never ask.

Bile climbed the back of her throat.

She didn’t eat dinner that night.

* * *

On Friday, sleep came to her in short bursts, brain fraying with the stress of insomnia. But she had made up her mind.

That morning, Vanya stole a gun from her father’s cabinet—a small, insignificant gun he’d never notice missing—and kept it tucked into her belt with the safety on.

* * *

On Monday, Quintin walked up to her with a to-go cup in hand, leisurely sipping at it as if he hadn’t been missing for nearly a week. As if he weren’t some kind of spy, or agent, or assassin sent to kill her father.

Vanya discreetly patted her hip, reassuring herself that the gun was still there, before pretending to adjust how the books sat in her arms.

“Hi Quintin,” she greeted.

That was a mistake. She never did that before. Usually she waited for him to say something first. Oh god, he knew now did he? She just showed her hand like an idiot.

Raising a brow at her, he simply nodded. “Vanya.”

A cold bead of sweat slid down her back like a slug, sending shivers dancing throughout her body. “I—Well.” 

Vanya frowned, glaring at the floor looking for words. “Where were you last week?” She blurted, words flying from her mouth before she could stop them.

At that, Quintin seemed to relax into himself, shoulders dropping and body leaning on one leg. “Just had some family business to take care of.”

“Family business?” 

What did that mean? Like his boss? An agency? His actual parents? Siblings? Did he have those? Asking herself all these questions, Vanya realized in that moment how little she actually knew about Quintin.

He took a sip of his coffee, relishing the moment as the silence stretched out between them. “Yeah,” he finally spoke. “My mom can be real...pushy about things. She had me holed up for a week to brush up on some old methods.”

Vanya tilted her head at that. “Like your grades?” 

That wouldn’t make much sense. Quintin was too smart to need punishment. But then again, how much of this was real? How much was he holding back?

But...what if he wasn’t the bad guy? What if she was making this whole thing up? Quintin could be pouring his heart out and Vanya would just be acting like an inconsiderate friend. An asshole for suspecting him of wanting to kill her dad when he was only trying to seek solace through her.

“My final grades weren’t exactly exemplary.”

 _“How?”_ She asked, flabbergasted.

Quintin seemed to perk up at that. “I didn’t know you thought so highly of me,” he teased, teeth flashing briefly in his amusement.

Vanya gripped her books tightly, annoyance hitting her hard. “Cut the crap, Quintin,” she bit out. His face went stony at that, blinking at the anger behind her words. “We both know you’re basically a genius.”

He shoved his free hand into his pocket, cocking a hip. “Yeah well,” he paused, looking for words, “we can’t always be winners.”

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

“Come on,” he said, tilting his head down the hallway. “I’ll walk you to class.”

There was no warmth or comfort being in his presence. For the first time since knowing him, Vanya felt like she was being monitored like a prisoner on parole. 

* * *

Periodically throughout the day, Vanya would check her hip to reassure her nerves that she had a way of defending herself. She was grateful for the fact that the bulk of her skirt and jacket hid the clunky shape so well.

Quintin would not stop watching her, eyeing her like she was a steak on a silver platter and he was a starving wolf. His green eyes felt like searchlights, large and bright but so cold. 

There was no warmth to his words or actions. Everything was off. It was like he tried to slip into a costume that didn’t quite fit anymore. She wanted to rip it off, tear the cloak to shreds, stomp on the mask and fake horns.

Where was _her_ Quintin? She didn’t want this imposter. 

“You know,” he whispered to her during their shared government class, “I was thinking of getting some studying done in the library tonight.”

Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “The library closes after four,” she whispered back.

“Exactly.”

Vanya froze, hand stiffening around her pencil. She peeked over at him through her bangs, hair obscuring his profile as he looked on at the board. 

Was that a challenge? Was he trying to tell her something? He wanted her to meet him. Right? 

His gaze flitted to her, lingering on her face. They were both eyeing the other, faces turned forward pretending like they weren’t suspicious of each other. And she hated it. She hated how she couldn't shake this uneasy feeling, hated how she couldn’t trust her only friend, hated how her world felt like a chair that had lost a leg.

“Maybe I’ll join you,” she eventually got out.

From the corner of her eye, Quintin smirked. “Can’t wait.”

* * *

When the janitor finished cleaning up, Vanya darted into a stall, collecting herself on the seated lid of the toilet. It was already half past four but Vanya couldn’t bear the thought of confronting Quintin quite yet.

Her fingers were frozen on the gun, cold like ice wherever her skin touched the sleek metal. It was like a dangerous icicle, sharp and dark and frigid. 

Tears leaked from her eyes, falling uncontrollably as she observed the weapon in her hand. Could she do it? Would she be able? No matter how hard she tried to psyche herself up, every time her finger brushed the trigger it felt like all the contents of her stomach would come spilling out.

The room smelled like bleach and cleaning products, yet her stomach still rolled. Her lungs felt pinched between her spine and ribs, air desperately trying to squeeze through the tiny space left there. Her heart was running a marathon, pumping endlessly and relentlessly. 

Everything was spinning, shifting sideways like she was on a bad acid trip. Not that she would know what that felt like. 

The gun winked at her, dark metal catching in the fluorescents. 

She could finish it there. 

Put a bullet in her brain and end the pain and suffering she had endured for all her life. Right then and there. She wouldn’t have to worry about her father ever again, to scrape and claw for every last ounce of his love or approval. She wouldn’t have to care about Quintin anymore, whether or not he was good or bad or just caught up in the middle like she was. Wouldn’t have to doubt her skill as a violinist, fear about getting rejected from every last college, be plagued by the rumors of jealous classmates. 

It could all end right there in the quiet of a girls bathroom.

But...no. 

That wasn’t _fair._

She had fought all her life, struggled for even just a shred of happiness or love. Why did she have to die when she had done nothing wrong?

Emboldened, Vanya stepped out of her stall, walking over to the mirror. The tears fell freely, streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn’t feel them anymore. She was determined, certain that she had to be the one to make it out of this.

Looking in the mirror, she saw a girl afraid and ghost white. Her hair was stringy from lack of washing, skin clammy with dread. But her eyes were fierce, angry and resolved.

Quintin would not take this away from her. He would not take away all that she had fought for.

It was time to confront him.

* * *

“I know what you are.”

Vanya stared down the barrel of the gun at the calculated expression of the boy she had once called a friend. 

His cold eyes gleamed back at her in the dimness of their shared hideaway, sharp and distant. So familiar yet so different, they felt like a knife sinking hilt deep into her heart.

“Oh?” he asked bemusedly.

No matter how many deep breaths she took to calm her nerves, her hand wouldn’t stop shaking. Like the timid, little mouse she was. Bile rose to the back of Vanya’s throat in disgust and she gripped the gun tighter, lifting the other to keep it steady with both hands.

Well, if she was a mouse then he was a _rat._

“A-and I’ll stop you,” she bit out. The words floundered into the empty spaces of the room, puny and sad as they tumbled to the floor.

A flicker of a smile flashed across his face, his dimple peeking through momentarily. “Will you now?” He crossed an ankle over his knee when he leaned into the loveseat, resting his face into his hand as if he had nothing to worry about. As if a gun wasn’t pointed at his head. 

There was nothing practiced about that pose. He meant that calm.

“Prove it,” he ordered.

Vanya scoffed, sickened with herself and the audacity of the boy before her.

How had she never realized? All those months spent learning about the other had meant nothing. It had all been a trick. Every moment had been planned and designed and only empty promises in the end. 

He had never truly cared for her to begin with, it was always a _lie_.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she shakily laid a finger against the trigger. Blood rushed to her ears as a surge of emotions strangled her throat. Vanya had never felt so much before. So much pain and anger and despair. She had never had anyone before and now she saw that that truth had remained in spite of everything.

He had been her _friend_. She had trusted him, loved him. But his face showed none of that now.

From across the room, his figure danced in the stream of her tears. The colors bled from maroons to scarlets as his silhouette wobbled into a shapeless form.

She had never truly had anyone. No one loved her, not even her father who loved his academy over his own child. Vanya had been last place in every situation, last place to every heart that had ever overlooked her.

But he had been the one person who had ever seen her. He had peered into her soul and shot past all the pain and self-doubt to see something that could have grown into someone beautiful if she had been raised in a different time, a different place.

As fake as it had been, he had _known_ her.

His body was a liquid blur of reds like wine and blood. The silence was stifling. He hadn’t made a single noise, waiting for her weakness to take its course.

And Vanya, always the disappointment, couldn’t let down the only friend she had ever made could she?

The gun was heavy in her hands, her arms trembling with the effort to keep it suspended any longer. There was no point anymore, was there? It was useless. Her arms fell, shoulders wilting in on themselves. Vanya couldn’t stand to look at anything anymore. The floor was just as cold and unforgiving as his stare.

“That’s what I thought.”

His footsteps sounded warped in her ears, thudding like they were gritty rocks thundering and crashing inside a rock tumbler. Dark twin blurs entered her line of sight, black and wet smudged across the Persian rug.

“Now,” he purred. A finger found its way to her chin as her world suddenly shifted from rugs to masks. “Let’s discuss this civilly.”

An ugly stretch of teeth smirked at her while frosty chunks of sea glass gazed at her patronizingly.

A flash of a memory dashed across her brain of her father telling her she would never be anything but worthless.

“No!” she snarled, thrashing from his grip.

The gun was dark and sleek as she pointed it at him like an animal brandishing its claws. Vanya’s lips curled into a feral scowl, teeth bared and gleaming.

For a moment, the boy looked taken aback, momentary surprise flickering in his eyes. She wanted to smile at the mistake, a glimpse of the friend she knew shining through momentarily, but she was too furious to let the hope seep in.

“By all means,” he shrugged, “point your gun at me if it makes you feel better.”

He stepped closer to her, pressing his chest into the metal. This time, there was no surprise in his eyes. No fear. Not even a flinch. The boy simply looked bored, as if this was a tedious step in an otherwise straightforward process.

Vanya shoved the gun harder, watching for a crack, a sign, anything. Pesky hope ate away at her resolve. She wanted something to prove to her once more that somewhere was a boy she could learn to love again. 

But there was nothing.

The world was watery and red, and Vanya for the life of her could not make sense of it. How was he so calm when she had been pushed to the brink of her emotions? How could he stand there looking so blasé when her world was collapsing into ash and dust?

Coolly, he placed his hand on the gun, easing it towards the floor as Vanya’s life fell to pieces, just like the ones of her mother’s violin. Distantly she heard him check the safety, his chuckle echoing far away in her mind like a distant thunderclap. She had never turned it off. And now he knew. Maybe he already had.

“There, that’s better.”

Dazed, Vanya watched him with misty eyes. Nothing felt real, like the floor was made of sand and the walls were painted with fog. The anger in her veins faded to a buzzing white noise and even her limbs felt like they weren’t real. As if they were floating away from her like a balloon as the boy led her over to the loveseat.

He sat her on the cushion like she was a toddler who hasn’t learned to climb yet, gently and precisely so she wouldn’t fall over. “It’s not like you were actually going to use it,” he stated matter-of-factly, brushing the hair from her eyes. His touch was gentle, but Vanya felt like she had been punched.

He spoke to her as if nothing had happened. Talked and talked at her like he was the same boy she had learned to care for in a measly six months. It was like no matter what mask he wore, it always fit him like a second skin.

“Who are you?” She whispered. Even her words felt like a barely-there puff of wind, a shadow of something real.

From his seat beside her, the boy smiled in a way that made his mask look real. “Call me Five.”

The world turned black.

* * *

When Vanya came to, Quintin was pacing rapidly in the small floor space of their corner in the library. He seemed distressed or anxious or something. His eyebrows were so dangerously low she was afraid his eyes would swallow them up.

“Quintin?” She mumbled, wiping away at her eye. Why did it feel like her head was stuffed with cotton?

His head snapped to her, eyes zeroing in on the way her puffy eyes struggled to stay open. “Good. You’re awake.”

Struggling to sit up from her spot on the loveseat, she asked, “What’s happening? Why am I…?” Her gaze snagged on the gun in his hand, hanging there limply like he didn’t even realize he was holding it.

Then it hit her.

Her stomach flipped painfully, throat clenching tightly before she could hold it back. She heaved over the side of the armrest, splashing the books with her sick.

Quintin—no, Five. His name was Five.

Five pulled her hair back, holding it away from her neck while softly blowing on the sweating skin there. He waited patiently for her to finish. 

Vanya didn’t know how she felt about that. It felt like a lie. Like a trick. She wanted to slap his hand away, cut her nails on his face. But her stomach roiled again and she clutched the arm of the loveseat tightly.

When it finally came to a stop, Vanya wiped at her mouth, panting all the while. Every last part of her felt miserable.

“Feel better?” He asked, still holding her hair.

Of course she didn’t.

“You want to kill my dad,” she coughed up weakly, smacking his hand away. Her throat was still raw and achy like she had swallowed back chunks of her bottled pain.

“He’s a bad man,” Five shrugged like that was explanation enough. 

The casual way he said it lodged a hunk of ice into her heart, sending shivers down her spine. How could someone say something so cold and not feel the gravity of it? 

“Do you want to kill me too?” Her voice came out as a whisper, weak and hollow. She couldn’t help but wonder. Was she just an obstacle for him to overcome? Did he use her the whole time? Did he even _like_ her?

He scoffed. “Of course not. We’re only after your father. _Only_ him,” he emphasized.

Vanya couldn’t take it anymore, she stood up abruptly to pace along the floor. She rubbed at her arms to try and bring some heat back to her body, but it was useless. Winter itself had come to live inside of her, burying itself deep beneath her skin to a point where she could not dig it out.

She couldn't make sense of the boy sitting in front of her. His actions were gentle but his words were harsh and painful, like he was trained to say things that cut. 

Well, he was a killer, having basically admitted to it not even three minutes ago. He could have killed her at any point. It didn’t matter if Vanya had the gun or not, she wouldn’t have put up much of a fight when facing a trained criminal. 

But then again, she could have killed him too. She had the gun pointed at him. She could have turned the safety off, could have shot him point blank, but he hadn’t even flinched. He knew she wouldn’t do it. That she wasn't capable of it.

Why would he spare her if he didn’t care for her? Why did he let her live? To suffer? To agonize over the fact that no matter what she did, she could never stop their plans?

“ _Why?_ ” she finally asked, voice cracking. Tears pricked at her eyes, burning them as they shined.

Qui—Five stared back at her with a calculating expression, like he was chewing on the words he wanted to say. His eyes were soft as he took in the way she held her arms, traveling over her trembling body. She wished she had a blanket to shield herself with.

“Do you know what your father does?” His words come out cautious, careful. He was treating her like a wild animal again. Only this time, she was wounded and eyeing him back.

“He’s a school principal.”

“Cover up,” he waved a hand, flippantly brushing off her answer as he stood up from his seat to pace over to her. 

Vanya felt her world bottom out, body colliding painfully with the hard jagged ground of rock bottom. Her innards felt scooped out, gutted like a jack-o’-lantern. 

“What,” she breathed, disbelievingly. 

Five watched her with gentle eyes, all his reserve crumbling as he gut punched her with his response. “He’s a human trafficker.” He offered up his palms, approaching her like the wounded animal she was. “He sells kids, Vanya.”

Her stomach tried to crawl its way out of her throat again. Her tongue felt weird and heavy, too thick behind her teeth. Her mouth tasted like chalk and ash and acid. 

That couldn’t be right. She had lived with her father her whole life. How would she not have known about that? Not seen the signs, the clues? It had to be a lie. He was lying to her, point blank. Lie after lie hitting her like bullets.

Five simply waited. 

How was he so calm? He’d known this horrible secret the entire time and he never let on once about the horrible things he knew. He let her live in the house of a monster. No. It was a lie. It had to be. Right?

“B-but—” Vanya gripped her head, yanking out strands as she did so. What was real? Her father was cruel, she knew this. But was he capable of _that_ kind of malice? “Why would he do something like that? How can I trust you? You’ve been lying to me the whole time!”

All her life she had been living under this man’s roof. He could have easily taken her away, had her killed off, any number of horrible things. But he kept her anyway, despite how much of a disappointment she was. Did that mean he loved her? Was he capable of loving?

The world was spinning again with all her questions. But she couldn’t afford to pass out again, she wanted—no, _needed_ answers.

“Why wouldn't he sell _me?_ ”

Five watched her sadly, hands stuffed in his pockets, the gun now forgotten on the table they used to eat lunch on. “Vanya,” he sighed, shaking his head weakly.

“Does that mean he cares?”’ she begged. “Does he love me?”

He kept shaking his head, eyes dropping to the floor. “Do you really want the answer?”

“Yes,” Vanya rushed out before he’d even finished the question. She needed confirmation, needed to hear it. Every last drop of water that man had ever given her now rested on a scale as she waited for the truth.

“He already tried. Do you know why he calls you number seven?”

The scale came crashing down on one side, water splashing over. She stared numbly at the boy.

“He’s adopted several kids in his lifetime, usually for good press. But eventually, they do something wrong—no matter how minor—and he ships them off. Claims to the public they’re off in foreign boarding schools to get an auspicious education, but he pays the cops under the table to hide the truth.”

Vanya’s legs collapsed from under her, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

“But in actuality,”—he rubbed a hand over his face tiredly—“he sold them. All to the same place with the highest bid.”

Her mind was so empty, its voice blank and gone. 

“You were the last. It would have been too suspicious to send you away after six kids. Not to mention a wife dead from a mysterious illness. The feds are already suspicious enough. Any more incidents and Reginald Hargreeves would have to change his name and start over. No, it was much easier to keep a child and have it raised by someone else nearby.”

Vanya listened numbly. She should have known. She did know. Deep, deep, deep down inside her, it was one of those painful truths she had stuffed inside a glass bottle to let collect dust on the shelf beside her heart. That man had never loved her. He barely even tolerated her.

“I’m sorry, Vanya,” Five offered. 

And he did sound sorry.

Just that pity alone shattered every last bottle in her chest, an explosion of memories and pain hitting her all at once from the inside. Her lungs were pierced and punctured, her heart shredded to ribbons, all an unrecognizable heap of bloodied muscle and tissue.

Vanya cried, long and hard. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of someone holding her, rocking her gently. Her whole world was coming undone, unraveling so fast Vanya couldn't even snag a finger on the thread. 

It felt like hours, Vanya crumpled on the floor in the arms of the boy she could hardly make sense of. Her breaths were erratic and heavy while her tears eventually dried up like an old well. 

When she cried herself out of tears in the end, Five had her cradled in his arms. Her head rested in the crook of his neck, the jacket soaked through with her snot and tears.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, feebly wiping away at the wet stain.

“Don’t be,” he murmured into her hair, kissing her on the crown of her head.

All Vanya could see in that moment were images of children being kidnapped, brutalized. She wanted to shut them off, make them go away forever, but the guilt hung heavily on her. Her father did these horrible things, made these innocent children go through hell and live it. And for what? Money? 

That man didn’t deserve the success he stole. Those lives he ruined with just a wave of his hand stacked up like poker chips to him. They were only money in his eyes.

A monster. Her father was a monster.

“When are you going to kill him?” She wondered. The world couldn’t continue even one more second with a man like that living in the shadows. She wanted him dead. He deserved whatever fate was coming to him. Deserved several hells over for the suffering he inflicted on countless children.

Five stiffened beside her, his grip unconsciously tightening around her shoulders. “You…?” He tried to find the words, but nothing would come out. Seemed like he didn’t know what it was he wanted to ask.

Vanya pulled away slightly to look him in the eyes. “Da—” she shook her head—“that _monster_ doesn’t deserve to live.”

Five considered her.

“Do you know what’ll happen to you?” He asked. “What’s done will be released to the public. His actions, the records, those deals he’s signed, all of that exposed for the world to see. Whatever fortune he may have left you in his will—if he even included you at all—would be immediately revoked. You won’t have a penny to your name.”

Vanya’s blood ran thickly through her veins, sluggish and cold. There would be no way for her to attend college without a full-ride scholarship. She would have no future if she didn’t have any money. She’d be left on the street, rotting away. Not even a foster family could take her in. She was already eighteen.

But. It would be worth it. 

“What else can I do,” she shrugged, fingers curling around the material of his sleeves.

“Come with me,” Five blurted out. His hands were warm on her back, palms flat and open. Green eyes bore into her soul, searching for an answer she hadn’t come up with yet.

He was a killer. She knew that. But now, she also knew it was for good reasons. But that didn’t mean Vanya could be one. She was too weak, too scared. “I can’t,” she tried to say, but her voice came out thick and rough.

Five’s hands jumped to her face, palming her cheeks as his fingers slid into her hair. His hands were gentle, soft and warm as they rested against her skin. She felt so safe there as he pleaded with his eyes. They were so green, light and airy like a fresh spring meadow. Like gentle waves sliding over the sand.

“Please?”

He was so close to her then, nose brushing hers lightly. Somewhere from a corner of her mind, she noted he had long eyelashes. They looked soft when his eyes flickered down to someplace lower. 

Her lips?

_Oh._

His gaze was smoldering, fiery like lava as it raked over her, eyes leaving hot trails in their wake. His thumb brushed away her tears softly, leaving behind hot patches of sunlight. Their breath mingled, hot puffs of air hitting her lips like steam. 

Before she could truly register what was happening, his lips were on hers, hot and hungry. Their mouths smeared against each other. So soft, she thought. His lips were so soft and wet. She wanted more, to taste him, to feel him. 

He devoured her, tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth and Vanya complied. She took all of him in, accepting his tongue as it explored every corner of her mouth. A noise came out somewhere deep in her throat. Her face felt flushed.

This was so much. Too much. Her head spun intoxicated from the kiss, the warmth, feeling loved so thoroughly in that instant.

“Five,” she broke away, pressing her forehead to his. She must taste disgusting. Like a combination of salt and vomit. 

_“Please?”_ He begged her, voice so much deeper than it had been earlier. 

She looked into his eyes then, brown colliding with green. Never in her life had someone offered so much vulnerability. So much _love._ He wanted to keep her with him. He _wanted her._

How could she deny him? 

Vanya nodded. “Yes,” she breathed. _“Yes.”_

* * *

A week later, her father died.

And Vanya never felt lonely again. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'll hand out candy to any person who remembers what tumblr post i was referencing in book reading scene lmao!
> 
> that's it guys, not much to say other than i'm so happy i manged to finish this! i wasn't expecting it to be this long but wowie, there it is!
> 
> ALSO!:
> 
> if you haven't seen the tumblr post/don't have a tumblr, fiveya week is coming up in a few months! the organizers released the prompts two months early in order to give everyone enough time to prepare for anyone who wants to participate. The dates are November 1st through November 7th!
> 
> Prompts:  
> Day 1: Memories  
> Day 2: Dancing/Training  
> Day 3: Childhood  
> Day 4: Sparrow Academy AU  
> Day 5: Guilt  
> Day 6: Endings/Beginnings  
> Day 7: Free Choice


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